Tennessee Repertory Theatre's production of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' features Samuel Whited, left, and David Compton. / Shane Burkeen

Written by

Fiona Soltes

For The Tennessean

Tennessee Repertory Theatre presents “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

When: Saturday -Nov. 3, with special preview performances at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and 7:30 p.m. Friday. Shows take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays and 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, in addition to 2:30 p.m. Oct. 20, Oct. 27 and Nov. 3. A First Night Supper Club option is available for opening night. Where: Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Johnson Theater, 505 Deaderick St. Tickets: Starting at $42.50; student admission starts at $11.50 with some restrictions. Contact:www.tennesseerep.org or 615-782-4040.

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If Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s peek into the hearts of men through “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is any indication, what can be found there is dark indeed.

The piece, a suspenseful and macabre adaptation of the classic novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, delves into villainy, motivation, guilt, confusion, violence, depravity and control — and does so in a careful balance of the abstract and the very real.

“This show will have a bit of blood in it,” admits actor Samuel Whited, who takes on the role of Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose experiments draw forth his “other self.” “It may surprise some folks. But there’s an immediacy the director (Peter Vann, in his Tennessee Rep directorial debut) is trying to bring. I don’t think it’s gratuitous, but it will be shocking. There’s plenty of death we’re dealing with here — and it is Halloween, after all.”

Rather than the surroundings of Victorian London typically associated with the work, Tennessee Rep heightens the drama with minimal, strategic props, as well as the use of numerous red doors. Gary C. Hoff, head of design, says those doors represent the various openings in the brain to memories and manifestations.

“It’s very graphic, very sharp,” he says. Originally, Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of the story called for a singular rolling red door. But without a traditional proscenium-style stage (a framed opening with the audience directly in front) the Johnson Theater space offers unique challenges — and opportunities. Take a gurney with a dead body on it, Hoff says casually. “On a proscenium stage, you could lift the sheet, but nobody would see what was under it.” With audiences on three sides in the Johnson, however, “We’ve got to show what’s under it. So we had to buy a nice corpse.”

Another striking aspect of the work is the use of four actors — including a woman — to portray Jekyll’s alter ego, Hyde. (The cast, in addition to Whited, includes Christopher Bosen, David Compton, Jamie Farmer and Amanda Card-McCoy.) All told, the six actors portray more than 20 characters.

It’s a switch for the group, most of whom just appeared together in “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure” at Nashville Children’s Theatre. While that piece offered some level of mystery and suspense, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Whited says, “is without a doubt, the darkest play I’ve ever done. It’s certainly not for children.”

In his own heart, Whited understands wanting to control the side that others see.

“But this story does not go down the road a lot of people think it’s going to go down,” Whited says. “Hyde is not specifically the villain. … I can identify with Jekyll, but I’m actually more sympathetic for Hyde.” Here, he says, Jekyll is a reflection of Victorian society, but Hyde is more a baseline, seeing injustice and cruelty as exactly what it is. And the various characters within Hyde allow a fresh exploration into the splintering of the mind.

While the actors remain focused on the psychological aspects, Hoff is tuned in to making the piece as “scary” as possible. The sparse set pieces — just a brandy set and leather chair for Jekyll’s study, for example — have been chosen for maximum impact and minimal distraction.

“What we don’t want to do is have anything that distracts the audience’s imagination, anything that takes them out of the moment, where they’re going, ‘Oh, I wonder what that is?’ ” Hoff says. “We want them to have complete control, a tight grip on their imagination. ... We have to keep the sense of danger going. ... We’re not going for some nice Disney version of Jekyll and Hyde. It’s not going to be that at all. It’s more like that good scary movie, when you don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s excitement, but it’s terror.”